AT&T was offering people up to $200 for every line that they brought over from T-Mo when they signed up for a Next plan and would also give you money for trading in your device as well (up to $250). We aren’t sure if the deal ran its course or if AT&T is instead going to rely on their new $100 line add-on promo, but after being announced at CES on January 3, the $450 deal is now over.

You can imagine how excited T-Mobile CEO John Legere is:

Certainly #shotsfired. While T-Mobile is expanding their break-up plan, AT&T is getting rid of theirs. Did any readers take AT&T up on their offer to switch before it ended?

“Instead of running his mouth, John needs to plan on improving/upgrading his network..” Actually T-mobile is in the process of turning on it’s LTE 20+20 network which is about 5-7 times faster than it’s current network. I believe it’s active in Northern Dallas but will be rolling out this year to other markets. The beautiful thing about this is, all of their current phones are compatible with this network today. Verizon only has 5% of their current phones that will work on their next gen 4G network and I believe AT&T’s phones that will be compatible are like 50% or less. They aren’t turning on their networks anytime soon…. I would say that Tmobile is putting their money where their mouth is… BTW I’m a 10 year VZW account holder of 5 lines, and I switched this weekend to Tmobile. even with 5 new high end phones, I’m saving $75 a month and I have unlimited everything. Verizon I had 2000 minutes, and unlimited data on two lines (and they kept trying to get me to get off that for their family share yet I average 20-35 GB of data each month)… averaged 20-25MB DL here in metro atlanta… I’ve connected no less than 35MB per Second DL with Tmobile….

Kevin Trammell

I’m on Sprint in Tampa and some places where I have service my friends with Verizon don’t .. my friend in Denver has T-Mobile she has service where her friends with att and Verizon don’t. It’s a mix and match world in cell phones. Sprint spark is phenomenal speed in the markets that opened so far they are slow at building out the network but at least it will be correctly done for the future

Rob Schoenfeld

This dude is an ass…

[A]dri[A]n

If you’re smart and buy unlocked phones, all this is irrelevant.

Trevor

Good lord, hashtags are an abomination.

Sam

I am not att or verizon fan but let’s face it T-Mobile has long way to go as far as quality and coverage. T-Mobile does have pockets of excellent coverage and quality but overall they are not even close! Until than I will be sucking up to one of the evil empire (ATT or VZ)

PoisonApple31

Even Sprint is better than T-Mobile in my area. That is sad.

BillySuede

at&t is simply getting trolled by one man and they are looking pretty bad right now. if you can’t beat them with network coverage, this is the next most effective way to cause mass disruption.

Jeremy Martin

Every time I read this stuff I’m at first “YAY! SCREW AT&T…SCREW VERIZON! T-MOBILE IS AWESOME!” then I remember T-Mobile’s coverage area and I make my peace again with Verizon. I cannot wait till T-Mobiles coverage backs up Johns “mouth”. I like what they are doing…just wish I could join and call someone to tell them about it.

Chris

With John’s “mouth” going off, he’s bound to get customers meaning more money and more money can be spent on building a bigger and better network,

hfoster52

Issue I see is the money they are using to pay for people to switch has to come from somewhere. I mean how much time does it take for them to recoup the cost of paying people to switch does it actually take?

Franklin Ramsey

Well, that’s fairly easy to calculate actually. They operate on a margin of 34% per their last quarterly numbers. So, if they pay a 300 ETF fee to get a person to switch to a $60 a month plan, each month they are making roughly $21 dollars. So they would recoup their loss of getting the person to switch after roughly 14-15 months.

mogelijk

This isn’t as large an issue as what people think. The average cost for a carrier to get a customer to start a new line is over $300; T-Mobile has found that paying the ETF is not hurting them in cost per new customer, they still average less than that per new customer. Actually, buying the Super Bown ads with Tebow probably cost them as much or more than paying ETF.

Jeremy Martin

yea that is one way to look at it. The other is that he will have unsatisfied customers who realize they do not have coverage and switch back. Some of these might not give T-Mobile another chance due to that. Word of mouth in their circles spreads fast. He needs to find some investor to dump some cash so he can get that network spread out across the nation like Verizon. If he had that, and this policy he is setting, he will have customers for life.

mogelijk

The issue isn’t money, it is spectrum. To cover rural areas effectively (as well as getting a signal in large buildings) you need low band spectrum, and the simple fact is that T-Mobile does not have that spectrum. They started to get a little with the deal they made with Verizon, where T-Mobile swapped/bought 700Mhz from Verizon. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help them in most areas of the country.

Sankyou

They’re working on it. They are the only carrier that has spectrum left to work with.

Tim242

Sprint begs to differ.

Diablo81588

What the hell are you talking about? Verizon has so much spectrum they’re selling it off. Not to mention rolling out AWS to major cities across the US.

VZWSignalBoost

Agree once T-mobile can get full coverage in okc area I’ll switch. With Verizon I can drive up and down I-35 to Texas boarder and Kansas boarder (I’m a phone install tech so I travel whole state) and have LTE the entire time. Got my wife t-mobile and second we leave the OKC area she looses signal and have to turn on my tether so she can jump on my grandfathered unlimited. Main thing I hate with Verizon is price and phone selection change one and I would be alittle happier but waiting months after all carriers already released a phone to get it 6+months later….not cool

Daistaar

A little off topic, but seeing as how T-Mobile as been pretty successful at shaking up the mobile industry, has anyone here bitten on the banking front?

Sankyou

Sort of. I am using Simple but I stuck with a big-name bank as well. Love Simple though. I have invites if you want ’em.

Daistaar

I’ll take an invite. 🙂

jhjr24

T-Mobile keeps doing right by their customers. Something AT&T and Verizon don’t get. I left Verizon after 4 years, and haven’t looked back.

Intellectua1

I never felt At&t needed to go into competition with this guy. The coverage and customer base of At&t speaks for itself. T-Mobile is not a threat to At&t or Verizon. If they ignore this guy he’ll go away. T-Mobile network doesn’t have credibility with half of America.

sunday39

are you serious…what tmobile did last year has shaken up the mobile market. Everybody followed with a version of there 0 down plans. But slowly they’re all giving up

Intellectua1

Exactly, and why are they giving up?? Cause they didn’t gain anything from it nor are they losing anything to T-Mobile.. T-Mobile may have shaken up the market but I think they (AT&T & Verizon) are realizing T-Mobile isn’t really a threat.. They don’t have the network or customer base to be a threat. Once people jump from the Big 2 and experience T-Mobile network they’ll jump ship..

jimt

Or stay with T-Mobile when they find it is better for their use.

Intellectua1

If you’re stuck in one place and it has good T-Mobile coverage then yes T-Mobile may be for you.. But me I travel, not a lot but I try to jump on a plane atleast 3-4 times a year not including driving to Canada, Portland, and California I don’t have time to be guessing if I’ll have coverage.. T-Mobile wouldn’t work for me.. Not even if I was stuck in Seattle I wouldn’t chance it.

jimt

True, if you are all over, Verizon is the king. I would guess that a lot of people could get by with the T-Mobile network and pocket the cash ($1000 dollars in my case) and be happy. Maybe find a pay phone or flag down a verizon user for help, if need be.

Wait even if they did couldn’t this also mean that they might have allocated certain amount of funds and when they ran out faster than they predicted they ended the promotion. That’s how I would run my business. They cant just do this with unlimited funds.

AbbyZFresh

Verizon’s been quiet in this whole squabble lately. Both AT&T and Sprint had quickly made their reactions to T-Mobile’s agressive tactics and both failed. Yet Verizon hasn’t even made a move at all.

Blake

Not entirely true. Verizon Edge is an example of their response to T-Mobile Jump. I imagine they just don’t feel as much of a need to be so aggressive with their actions/promotions.

Mike

Short answer: They dont need to. They have the highest % of postpaid subscribers, and the largest # overall of postpaid subscribers. Until AT&T and TMO can match their network footprint, they’ll continue in silence

Sankyou

Yes I jumped ship but I agree that it’s not a compelling argument for the vast majority of cellular users. It starts with this: What % of cellular users could benefit from more than 2gb of data a month. Answer: Not too many. Once you throw unlimited data out, how compelling is it to switch for what is ultimately similar in cost overall. I like having new phones about every year and I have a use for unlimited data but I am also in the strong minority on both of those counts.

Jeff McLean

Because Verizon isn’t even remotely affected by it. Theyre still putting up record numbers. Look at their earnings call. Yes LOTS of people on here have jumped ship etc, but that’s hundreds or thousands, not millions.

Disqus_n00b

Remember recent developments at Verizon like “Share Everything”, activation fees, removal of early upgrades, etc have all taken place in the past 18 months and there are a number of people still locked into their old plans which are favorable given VZW’s coverage.

Once someone learns of the large device subsidies, they never go back. Edge does a good job fooling the uneducated.

Eric R.

They don’t have to because they have coverage, and more people are leaving all 3 other carriers combined to switch to Verizon

ROB

Verizon has a loyalty plan right now that they are not advertising.

Xavier_NYC

Wasn’t ATT going to buy Tmobile until everyone realized they’d monopolize and charge people whatever they wanted because they’d be the only GSM network in the US?

Good_Ole_Pinocchio

yes….?

Intellectua1

Exactly..

Poison

I think what T-Mobile is doing is great. I really do. It was time for a change with the cell phone companies as a whole. T-Mobile has certainly come a long way in the past couple of years. However, I will go out on a limb and say that , until they can compete with AT&T’s superior network they really kind of shoot themselves in the foot. Everyone’s coverage is different. Here, in St.Louis T-Mobile does just fine, they’re certainly no Verizon or AT&T, but they are leaps and bounds ahead of Sprint. Which isn’t saying much. Instead of running his mouth, John needs to plan on improving/upgrading his network at the very MINIMUM to where AT&T is. I’m certainly rooting for them to be neck and neck with the big dogs. What I find funny is how the industry claims that Sprint is a big player and T-Mobile not so much. Anyone who’s been with Sprint or currently with Sprint will say they have horrible service.

Chris

My only complaint with sprint is the spotty 4G coverage here in the Portland metro area. Some areas I get 4G and some I get 3G.there are times where I get 4G but a block down the road I drop back to 3G with 4G bumping back up not even a few blocks after that.

Poison

A friend of mine has Sprint and they have so many dropped calls it’s ridiculous. 4G is spotty and she virtually has no signal indoors, anywhere. When she sends me texts I get them 6hrs later. I had Sprint back in 2001, they were horrible then, clearly not much has changed.

tspx23

A friend of mine has Sprint and half the time my call never even goes through. He flat out doesn’t even get it and this is downtown Seattle. Surprised how Sprint even has customers.

Chris

I was in Seattle last year. Went to the space needle and I even lost signal up there and you would think you’d get a better signal being over 600 feet tall.

Chris

I get those every once in a while. My signal usually drops if i’m in a big building like costco or Walmart. Kohls I get ZERO signal even at the front neat the entrance. I very rearly get then text issue though I got some pictures that were sent out on the 26th and just got them a few days ago.

i’m on a family plan and I have no real intentions of leaving. I had verizon but it got too expensive.

shooter50

sprint blows, end of story

acashe42

Even my dad left sprint after like 10 or 12 years

Adam Truelove

I love what they’re doing too, I just wish they would quit being such as ass about it. Give the public the facts and leave it at that, don’t be a “nah nah nah, I told you so” little playground jerk about it. It’s one thing to be good at what you do, it’s another to never shut up about it.

There’s definitely a line to be drawn. Some of the jokes John makes are plain hilarious. Others he takes too far. That’s just how he is though.

Chad

Exactly, AT&T and Verizon don’t need to pull these stunts because… well, they don’t have to. These are sales gimmicks to get people to switch to a carrier that they probably did chose in the first place for a reason.

For some people, the midsized/smaller carriers will work just fine, for others (like me) I will gladly pay for service that I know I will have in 99% of anywhere I go or may go.

Timothy Sternig

If they don’t need to pull these “stunts”, then why did they follow along and do it? AT&T has also tried mimicking T-Mobile’s “stunt” of an early upgrade program and various other “stunts” that T-Mobile has initiated. Seems like these “stunts” actually might be good ideas instead and that AT&T has either felt threatened by what T-Mobile is doing or is feeling the impact from what T-Mobile is doing in the way of losing customers.

Chad

There’s no incentive for the biggest players in the game to really, “shake up” the market. Because, obviously, the status quo is doing just fine for them. Smaller players NEED the stunts to work,whereas the giants can mimic the stunts and if they bring no substantial bonus to the corporation, kill the stunt, and they’re still #2.

Encourage the use of the “network” with paltry provisions for data allowances is crazy. when He says stuff like this, and encourage folks to use wifi connections — they are constantly turning data in oil…

there is incentive, especially when network penetration goes up for the competitor.

So there is incentive. as T mobile attracts customers, their value increases. If T mobile hits the saturation point as stephenson describes and they are satisfied, the fight for the dollar becomes limited.

I’m a verizon customer, now. If T mobile had better coverage near where i stay, I would have never left. ESPECIALLY with these price points.

Chad

The way I see it, cellular network providers need to find a way to get their customers to pay more. My Verizon (Alltel before that) bill has been about $120 for the past 7 years which has given me 500-700 min, unlimited text, unlimited data. Back ion 2007 it included access to their 3G network and a subsidized Moto RAZR (or something). Then iPhones happened. Then OG Droid happened. Then 4G happened. Suddenly, for me as a consumer, my $120 is going much further. I would assume either they would try to get us to pay more (data caped plans) or try to get us to pay for more of the phone (remember when they were always $100 if you signed a contract).

tcope

But, as mentioned, your entire statement is obviously incorrect in that AT&T _DID_ feel the need to pull this “stunt”. Also, why is this a “stunt”? Is a simple offer to people who can choose to switch at little expense or not switch. TM is also _still_ offering it. So I fail to see how it’s a “stunt”. if you are referring to what AT&T did, then I’d agree it was a stunt. It was a stunt by them as it was given… and then taken away so quickly, showing that they never intended it to last.

I can give you a long list of companies that where on the top of the market and thought they did not need to change things because of this. It’s a list of companies no longer in business or no longer relevant

You claim that AT&T stopped because they were not stealing enough customers from TM. Why do you think those people were staying with TM? If TM is still offering the plan then I guess they _are_ stealing enough customers from AT&T.

KR

It’s only a stunt because T-Mobile isn’t his preferred network.

VZW had good coverage, but I spend 90% of my time within a few major cities, so I don’t need coverage everywhere that I don’t frequent (and if I am traveling to one of those other areas, I’m likely on vacation and should (gasp) put down my phone!). This obviously isn’t the case for everyone, but for me, it was worth the 1/3 price difference and thousands over the course of a normal two year contract. Call me crazy, but why pay for something I’m clearly not using?

Add to the fact that if you’re an Android die-hard, VZW is arguably the worst carrier to be on, not to mention their other constricting policies. The decision was much easier to make from this perspective and I’d have made the jump much sooner if things were always this sweet.

Stone Cold

What you see as a stunt has people who are already customers and others happy. It is helping people get away from a 18-24 month cycle before they were able to get a new device. No matter if it is Verizon or AT&T you can upgrade almost at any time you want now. As a T-mobile customer the service works great for where I am at and this “stunt” as you call it is saving me money.

Tim242

Working in a store, I can assure you that people do not want a higher bill with installment plans.

Stone Cold

In the long run this works for me and my needs still gives consumer choices.

Stone Cold

I respectfully disagree with part of your statement. You are making it seem like everyone that comes in store has 5-700.00 bucks to drop on a new phone or tablet. For some the only way to get a new device is through the installment plans. That is what makes the JUMP program so appealing to consumers. With the 70 dollar unlimited and say you qualify for the best offer which is the 22 as month for 2 years. That roughly a little over 100 a month for the phone and plan. Others with bad credit I can see your point.

raw2000j

Once u paid ur phone off will be lower and believe me it will be less than your carrier

Tim242

Once it is paid off, it’s time for a new phone.

Mark SCHOTTEN

Yeah this is the best thing I think I’ve ever seen any big phone carrier do in the interest of the end user/consumer.

LiterofCola

Exactly! In the end you get what you pay for. If you want to be cheap, settle for T-Mobile.

Steven Strain

Many of At&t and Verizon customers would be fine on T-Mobile.

Where I work about half the office are with Verizon and most never leave Southern California. I guess they’re all on grandfathered rates. Current plans are a joke if you don’t need the coverage.

Blake

Have to disagree with “AT&T’s superior network” remark. I’ll grant that AT&T has more coverage but I get faster data speeds and less dropped calls than with AT&T. Simply having more does not make it superior. They both have room for improvement though.

Poison

I think it goes without saying that all 4 of the carriers need improvement. All of my family and most of my friends are on AT&T, except for my sister and I who are on Verizon. I have sampled all of the carriers because I have a phone addiction. I never said T-Mobile was bad. Hell, they’ve done an awesome job at improving and they have come a long way like I mentioned. If I were to switch carriers though, it would be to T-Mobile because they have great pricing and unlimited web!

Jarred Sutherland

Superior is subjective. AT&T is superior here because T-Mobile doesn’t have much to offer us yet, I am hoping that changes here.

Blake

I agree with you. I’m not saying T-Mobile is better, I’m just simply arguing that AT&T isn’t better. It depends on your needs and location. That said, I do hope T-Mobile expands their coverage.

Alex

Faster data speeds and less dropped calls in the city don’t help you when you drive out of the city and get zilch or Edge on T-Mobile. Also, I can’t remember the last time I had a dropped call on AT&T.

Blake

I agree T-mobile’s coverage is smaller, no debating that, but at least in my experience T-Mobile’s network is better when it’s there. I rarely travel outside of the metro area I live in so to me I’d rather prioritize faster speeds and less call issues for the majority of use cases. As for dropped calls, it’s been at least a year since I last tried AT&T, but it dropped about 10% of my calls when I lived in DC.

I will agree though that it’s annoying when T-Mobile does drop off and it does happen more than with AT&T; I just don’t think that gives AT&T a superior network. It’s subjective.

I agree as well. Late last year the wife and I were driving around Aspen during our anniversary, and I was so pissed that coverage (in the mountains) was so poor. When we returned I decided to go back to Verizon — the carrier I used to use before we got married, she’s been on TMO forever though, and it was hard to convince her to let them go.

The ensuing nightmare sucked even worse than not having more than Edge coverage in the mountains for a couple of days. I created my account and bought my phone with the promise that adding my wife the following day (when she was off) would be no problem. What ended up happening was a disaster of epic proportions that ended up involving 2 managers and 4 salespeople in the VZW store, 4 calls (by me) to VZW corporate, assurances from everyone that my credit is excellent and that nobody could figure out why the system would not allow them to add a second line to the account unless I wanted to pay for the phone outright, and so on.

The people in the VZW store were great — courteous and nice and followed through. Dealing with CSRs and others at corporate sucked. Bad. I was constantly being pushed off the phone (assuming they didn’t want to mess up their call stats) and nobody followed through. On anything.

On the 13th day (after buying the wife’s phone outright) I went into TMO to pay off my balance and was chatting with the salesperson about the fiasco of changing to VZW. She asked if I’d be interested in returning if she could sweeten the deal (this was very early in the un-carrier announcements I think). Not only did I go back to TMO but I ended up with a small credit to my bill (that is, balance was wiped out and somehow ended up slightly in the negative) and nearly $400 credit for trade-in of our old TMO phones towards new ones. I immediately went back since I was at the end of my VZW grace period.

After that I had to make 2 more calls to VZW and 3 more trips to the store to get my VZW account properly credited with my returned devices and accessories. Total nightmare.

Oh yeah, 2 weeks use of VZW = 1 full month on TMO in charges.

TL;DR
3 days of limited coverage in the mountains made me try to go back to VZW from TMO and regretted every minute only to return back to TMO after 2 weeks. Moral of the story — if 99.9% of the time I’m content on TMO, I shouldn’t bitch about the 0.1% that i’m not.

Yakuzahi

“I can’t remember the last time I had a dropped call on AT&T”

So you’re not from NYC area.

[A]dri[A]n

Well all this is subjective to where you live. No one has a perfect network.

Intellectua1

Sprint sucks. I’m not going to even get into that horror story.. But hey you from the Lou?? I’m originally from there but I’ve been living in Seattle since 2008. Love it here. Cards nation baby, but I’ve always hated the Rams they suck..

Poison

LOL, Rams weren’t good when LA had em’, some things never change!

Al-Burrit0

Yea I agree it just depends on the area you live in. In my area T-Mobile is nowhere near as good as Verizon & ATT, but is making ground on Sprint in my area. But again it all just depends how well they cover and support the area.

Dominick White

Same here in central ny. Where you get spotty 4g with t-mobile in major cities like Syracuse and Rochester. And 2g,not even 3g in smaller cities like Ithaca and Auburn

Al-Burrit0

Yea im in a smaller city area(Yuma, AZ) and Tmo is horrible(2G). Sprint is in 3G and i think Verizon is my area is still in 3G The best choice was ATT because even though no LTE yet they do have hspa to back it up in my area.

Mark SCHOTTEN

Oh I couldn’t agree with ya more! I switched from T-Mobile to sprint over 2 years ago because sprint were the only ones who had truly unlimited data and T Mobile flat out told me that there was nothing they were going to do to fix this or help me out. Then the following year all flag ship devices switch to LTE AND SPRINTS NETWORK WAS NOTHING BUT SLOW ASS 3G WHICH I SUFFERED WITH FOR TOO LONG! Then I finally switched back to T Mobile on their new unlimited everything plan on a prepaid bill and I’ve got insanely fast LTE Everywhere I go around Denver.

Poison

My friend keeps arguing the whole “I have unlimited data with Sprint and no one else offers it”. My argument is simple, there is no point in offering the unlimited data if it barely connects to the network. She pays $135 a month for one line. I’m on VZW and pay $121 a month unlimited min , text and 4GB of data. I point her towards T-Mobile who offers unlimited web and its half the price AND more reliable!

Mark SCHOTTEN

Yeah I had Verizon and although the quality is absolutely hands down the best there is all around the customer service agents are snooty and the prices suck not to mention there’s no unlimited data which is a absolute deal breaker I every case for me since I use over 80 gigs of data every single month

Poison

I think that is where ALL of the carriers need to go, back to unlimited data. Worst descision ever was the whole “tiered data”.

Mark SCHOTTEN

When I was with sprint I kept thinking that it doesn’t matter if they have unlimited data because they have such slow data speeds that you couldn’t possibly use more than a couple gigs per month

a.d.AM

If the Sprint / T Mob merger goes through I dont know what im going to do.

Chris

It was bound to happen. AT&T is scared of T-Mobile.

Justin Munson

Love Ceo john legere. Such a bad ass. The way he calls out other carriers makes me want to switch from Verizon. Only thing holding me back is Coverage south of Chicago…. Team John

TheVoiceOfReason

This is such a non-story.

jamdev12

Cause you are thevoiceofreason, right?

TheVoiceOfReason

Because there’s no beef to the story at all. AT&T ended their promotion. Life goes on.

Willie D

Shots fired is right. 36th and Bush hes got him at gun point *quotes Cops outro*

Plerisei

The whole thing about no contracts is hilarious. Still, if you decide to cancel service, you have to pay off the rest of the phone. It still puts you a very similar predicament without the label. Guy is hilarious.

fir3ball

but the price is attached to the phone, not the service, you could sign up and buy a phone outright or bring one. All they did was break the phone/service bundle, made the service cheaper because there is no more built in phone cost because they sold you a phone for 99 cents.

John Legere

They were honest with consumers. Unlike Verizon, who ups your bill and you end up paying more than $700 over 2 years.

Plerisei

They are honest with their customers, that is true. I was with Verizon, and I never experienced that with them. I’d still be with them if I could have afforded to be; it was difficult giving up that unlimited LTE speed and coverage.

John Legere

Verizon adds it in. They don’t show it on any bills though. That’s how they get away with it.

jamdev12

I see you like getting things for “free.” Either you pay for it upfront or you get jacked in the rear. Which one do you prefer?

Evan Wickes

i prefer upfront… or what that a rhetorical question??

Plerisei

You saw wrong. I wasn’t looking for anything for free. I am actually using a Nexus 4 off contract on solavei. And T-mobile can call it whatever they want to call it; I still must pay some sort of fee for leaving their service, whether it was the standard ETF of $360(or whatever it was for T-mobile, before it declines per month), or the remainder of the phone price. Its the exact same game, with a few different rules, with a different label in my eyes. It is still cheaper than the other carriers, but that was always the case. It is just not as wonderful as they attempt to make it out to be by their marketing.

sirmeili

There is huge difference when compared to normal Contracts with ETFs. When you have an ETF and your contract is over, you still pay the same amount (your monthly fees don’t go down). With the T-Mobile version (Jump), you can BYOP, or pay monthly payments.* When those payments are done, you pay less per month. That’s right, you no longer are paying to subsidize a phone that you’ve paid off.

It’s a huge difference and I realize that most of us around here don’t keep our phones long enough for that, but people like my Mom and Fiance do. They don’t care how new phone is as long as it still works. Why continuously pay for the subsidy when you’re past your 2 years?

*The Verizon Edge program may work similarly, but I’m not sure. I seem to remember the cost of the plans not really being any different even though you are on the edge program and paying the monthly fee for your phone.

Alex

AT&T plans work like that now too though. Price drops $25 per line after your contract ends. Granted, it’s probably because of T-Mobile.

jimt

You forget that on Verizon you pay like you are buying a phone, forever, even if you are not. There rates include the new phone fees even if you use an old phone that is beyond the ETF period.

Ben Murphy

Bahahaha!! These carrier wars are awesome. I’ll never forget the Verizon/AT&T squabble.

You’re always a little prick. I’m sure you didn’t have to add the *not john… Everyone on this site knows that by now because you use other peoples names as a way to escape from your own sad, pathetic life.

Steve B

Quit being a douche and shut your mouth.

Ej McCarty

Why don’t you make me lol. I’m sure you’re a little weak bitchhh

Steve B

Ej McCarty, the king of down votes and flags. Congrats!

Ej McCarty

Aww is someone butthurt because they got called a loser? Do you need need a tampon change?

John Legere

Yes, because not using your own name means you’re pathetic. Personal lives don’t belong on the internet. Good luck finding a job after they search your name.

Jim890

Just don’t reply back to him. He’s doing that for attention. Just down vote him, that’s good enough.

This man’s face on the cover of every T-mobile vs AT&T story makes it so much better.

Adrynalyne

Ending it due to pure greed.

If it wasn’t successful, then there was no reason to end it, because it wasn’t costing them anything in that case.

John Legere

Exactly. I bet they’ll end the $100 credit soon too.

Eric R.

Who’s got coverage?

jimt

San Francisco bay area, for one.

emoney

got coverage and half the price/month of verizon and 5x the data amount. as a bonus, i can upgrade my phone at any point.

Eric R.

Give me them fake account downvotes

John Legere

lol okay buddy, no need to start unwarranted bs. Already had to clean the comments earlier.

Mark2134

Yes we did clean them up. 😉

Eric R.

In not starting BS you’re just making stupid comments and I have to make stupid ones back, so that you understand.

John Legere

Yes. Because talking about AT&T on an AT&T article is stupid. Good to know it’s only you making off topic comments.

calculatorwatch

Unless they realized their customers were taking JL’s suggestion and using it as an excuse to try out T-mobile’s network without any penalty if they decide to switch back. That could certainly have cost them some customers.

Omar Amer

I think it might have been Tmo/John using the offer to entice people to try Tmo without any risk. ATT didnt think Tmo can spin the offer in their favor like that. Whole plan kind of backfired.

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